Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

12 Nov 2002, 16:52 p.m.

Best wishes to Kris, who's going through medical hardships right…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Best wishes to Kris, who's going through medical hardships right now.

Also, Andy, it is indeed feasible to lay down an ukase against swearing at your party. (I'd be interested to know your reasons. Is there a particular guest who finds profanity offensive? Is that guest you?) Your guests may not perfectly follow such a directive, but your guests, I'll predict, are cool enough to try. Or to not come in the first place, once they find out.

Sorry I can't make it to your party. Blow a kazoo for me, willya? And maybe next year.

Adam, I hope you're feeling better by the time of your flight back west.

In international news, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin blew up at a French reporter at a news conference when the reporter threw him some tough questions about Chechnya. I would cut Putin a little slack, since he just lost many citizens in that botched Moscow hostage rescue attempt, but certainly he scandalized the European community with his comments, which were dark and earthy, much like Russia's staple, black bread.

He went through various categories of person, such as resident of the USA or of a US ally, Christian, atheist, and moderate Muslim, and noted that radical Muslims (as he characterized the Chechen rebels) would freely kill any of these. He ended his tirade:

"If you want to go all the way and become a Muslim radical and are ready to get circumcised, I invite you to Moscow," Putin said. "We are a multi-confessional country, we have experts in this field, too. I will recommend that they carry out the operation in such a way that nothing grows back."
The gazeta.ru (literally, gazeta means "newspaper") story, to which most other stories refer, is in Russian and in English, but the Moscow Times story linked above explains the comments, background, and repercussions more clearly and at greater length. Good reading.